Abubaker Siddiq Shekhani Blog

The December 2016 Geminids peaks with Moon peak

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Karachi, Pakistan: Meteor showers are a great show and Geminids is one of the best meteor showers of the Year. I remember the first meteor shower observation of my life. It was back in 2010 when I recently co-founded Karachi Astronomers Society and we went to a mere 150 Kms from Karachi to Kalri Lake. It was first quarter Moon and it was too cold. We counted over 150+ meteors during the whole night. Mr. Khalid Marwat, KAS’s founding President led us and taught us how to make the meteor recordings. We submitted our recordings to the International Meteor Organization (IMO) and those were luckily published.

 

How to Observe Meteor Shower

During December, the Earth passes through its orbit where there is rocks and space dust left by Comet. The concentration of that space rocks and dust is much more at this particular area where the Earth passes on night of 13/14 Dec and therefore more chances of meteor observation. The constellation of Geminids is the area in Night sky from where all the meteors will appear to radiate and this is the reason that constellation is called the radiant of meteor shower.

Just after Midnight, start looking on all sides of the constellation of Geminids. Even with Full Moon, you may see one or more meteor every 5 minutes.

Geminids Metoer Shower of the Year 2016

This Geminids will peak during Moon peak (Full Moon), so chances are that only the bright ones will be visible. Regardless of Moon putting up light show during the night, don’t miss the opportunity to observe this once in a year event.

What Next? Did we miss the shower due to Full Moon?

There are other meteor shower peaks as well during the year such as Perseids and Orionids giving you 50+ meteors during the night of Peak 🙂 So don’t worry, we have more meteor shower peaks coming next year. Also, if you go our to the dark sky during a clear night, you will see many meteors in different areas of the sky. If there is no peak during those days, then those meteors are called Sporadics. You can see sporadics meteors coming from everywhere in the Sky and some are even fireballs that makes a sonic boom sound and some leaves a long smoke trail 🙂

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Abubaker Siddiq Shekhani

Abubaker Shekhani is an IT Entrepreneur and Full Stack Developer. He is the co-founder and the Developer behind Mytabeeb, a health care solution. He has worked for 5 years in Microsoft Dynamics AX space with Techno-functional role and glad to be one of few Microsoft Dynamics AX developers/consultants in Pakistan. He is TEDx speaker and likes to speak in public. He is an Amateur Astronomer and Astrophotographer. He is the founding member of Karachi Astronomers Society. He can be reached at me@abubakershekhani.com.

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